A week ago, Russia successfully launched a prototype of its next-generation Angara rocket. This was the third test for this new machine which is to replace the Proton launchers. This test was presented as a real success. In reality, not everything went as planned.
Russia has been developing its new Angara rocket family for about two decades. Among them is the heavy launcher Angara A5 which aims to replace the aging and very polluting Proton rockets. Its deployment took time, with a first test flight attempted in 2014 . As part of this test, the launcher had placed a two-ton mass simulator in geosynchronous orbit. A second flight was then attempted six years later, in December 2020. Again, it involved placing a dummy payload in orbit (2.4 tonnes).
Why did it take so long between these two test flights? The expense of building the Angara A5 (about $100 million per vehicle) was probably the biggest factor .
Last December, the Angara A5 rocket nevertheless finally returned to service with a third flight. From then on, Russia planned to start flying military payloads aboard this vehicle, but also to compete for contracts to launch commercial satellites. However, not everything went as planned.
This configuration of the Angara rocket featured the same first stage as the two previous flights:a single "Universal Rocket Module" core powered by an RD-191 engine with four "URM" cores additional cards serving as attached boosters. In contrast, for this new test, Russia relied on a new upper stage named "Persei", fueled by liquid oxygen and kerosene.
For its third flight, the Angara A5 vehicle took off from the Plesetsk cosmodrome on December 27, taking with it another dummy load. Main stage and boosters operated successfully. The second stage carried out a nominal initial burn of its RD-0124 engine, but the second, allowing the payload to be placed in the planned orbit, failed .
Curiously, Russian officials celebrated the launch as a success. As Ars Technica points out, the Russian news service RT did indeed publish an article pointing out that the Persei upper stage would significantly improve the performance of the Angara A5 vehicle. The upper stage (monitored under the name IPM 3/Persey) has never reignited and is currently sailing at an altitude of less than 200 km. He will probably make an uncontrolled comeback this Wednesday . Let's hope he dives into the ocean.
